Now Yahweh said to Abram, “Go from your country and from your relatives and from your father’s house and go to the land that I will show you.
And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who treats you with contempt I will curse, and all of the clans of the earth will be blessed by you.”
So Abram went just as Yahweh had told him to, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.
Abram took his wife Sarai, and his nephew Lot, along with all their possessions that they had gained and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan,
Abram passed through the land to the Place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.
And Yahweh appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your seed.” So he built an altar there to Yahweh, who appeared to him.
From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. He built an altar to Yahweh there, and called on the name of Yahweh.
Abram traveled, going on by stages toward the Negev.
Abram and Sarai in Egypt
Then there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, because the famine was severe in the land.
And when he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “Look, I know that you are a beautiful woman.
So, when the Egyptians see you they will say, ‘This is his wife,’ and they will kill me, but they will keep you alive.
Please say that you are my sister, so that it will be well with me for your sake, and so that my soul will live because of you.”
And when Abram came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw the woman, that she was very beautiful.
The officials of Pharaoh saw her and praised her to Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.
And he treated Abram well for her sake, so that Abram came to have sheep, cattle, male donkeys, male slaves, female slaves, female donkeys, and camels.
But Yahweh plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.
Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this that you have done to me? Why didn’t you tell me that she is your wife?
Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? So now, here is your wife! Take her and go!”
So Pharaoh gave his men orders about him, and they sent him away, with his wife and all that he had.